


The Never Ending Night

by ThatScottishShipper



Category: Zero | Project Zero | Fatal Frame (Video Games), Zero: Akai Chou | Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly
Genre: Brother/Brother Incest, Canonical Character Death, Fic Exchange, First Time, Forbidden Love, Guilt, Human Sacrifice, Incest, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Pre-Canon, Psychological Horror, Rituals, Sibling Incest, Strangulation, Suicide, Teen Sex, Twincest, Various attempts at suicide mentioned, dont repost to another site, unable to die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25384969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatScottishShipper/pseuds/ThatScottishShipper
Summary: After his Crimson Butterfly ritual failed, heartbroken without his beloved twin, Itsuki took his own life in the storehouse.Then he woke up.*Written for the Multifandom Horror Exchange 2020.*
Relationships: Tachibana Itsuki/Tachibana Mutsuki
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	The Never Ending Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [foxjar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxjar/gifts).



Itsuki Tachibana _hated_ Minakami village. He hated this cursed place, and the selfish grownups in it.

The boy stared at his snow white hair in the dusty mirror, a testament to his status as a Remaining. His ever curious sister asked so many questions about it, and why Mutsuki wasn’t coming back. Behind a forced smile, all Itsuki could do was change the subject while thinking a Remaining made him...

A choker. A strangler.

A killer. _Murderer_.

All because of the Crimson Butterfly ritual.

It was an honour, the grownups said, to be chosen for the ritual. Itsuki very much disagreed.

Forcing one twin to strangle the other to death? Sacrificing one half of yourself to appease the Hellish Abyss, to save others? Itsuki choked back a sob, thinking of his beloved brother. His Mutuski.

Losing one half of his heart was not worth the price.

But life was a harsh mistress, and scarcely simple, something the Tachibana twins knew well. The love they had for their friends, fellow twins Sae and Yae, and of course, their little sister, Chitose, who would suffer from the disgrace should they refuse.

Running away was discouraged after the rumours of the twins with no names tried the same. Their lives, their names, were erased from Minakami history, except the disgrace they left.

Not only was Mutsuki too weak to escape, they did not wish to leave that shame upon their family, especially the innocent Chitose.

At the time, there had been only one way to save them, one choice that did not feel at all like a choice.

 _‘One sacrifice,’_ he remembered Mutsuki saying that night. _‘We can save them with just one sacrifice.’_

Itsuki’s screaming heart seized inside his chest.

If Itsuki and Mutsuki completed the Crimson Butterfly ritual, if Itsuki turned Mutsuki into his butterfly, Sae and Yae would never have to go through that suffering, and there would be no disgrace.

Through their shared grief of what was to be, Mutsuki tried to reassure his brother. _‘At least, this way, I’ll always be yours.’_

Their ritual failed. Mutsuki did not become his butterfly, only a cold corpse on a hard slab deep underground.

Itsuki knew why.

He loved his brother, and that love eclipsed everything, including his duty and service to the village.

He had wanted Mutsuki to be his alone. Away from those terrible villagers and to be united with him in life and in death.

They could have lived together, forever, growing old in each other’s arms, away from the dark village. Instead, they gave themselves to each other the night before the ritual, so they could belong to each other in body and spirit.

It had been Itsuki’s only reassurance that Mutsuki belonged to him, even as he towered over his brother, his hands shaking as they pressed against his soft neck. Even then, that night returned to him, his beloved Mutsuki lying below him with a gentle expression.

 _”Itsuki, it’s alright,”_ he had whispered, cupping his twin’s cheek. _“We’ll always have this..._

_Please...”_

In their last night together, they made love together in a windowless room. Not even the celestial moon bore witness to them becoming one. No, they wanted no one to share that moment, as Itsuki held Mutsuki tenderly, slowly pushing in for the first time.

Itsuki still remembered Mutsuki’s soft gasps of pleasure as his hands came down around his neck. He remembered the instinctual writhing and squirming as they moved together, even as Mutsuki tried to be still for Itsuki in the chamber.

He remembered Mutsuki holding him closer, every thrust transcending and ethereal, as Mutsuki encouraged him to proceed with the ritual.

In the throes of heartbreak and witnessing his beloved slip away, Itsuki remembered that perfect moment when their life essences mingled together with a final cry, and Mutsuki whispered...

“ _I love you, Itsuki..._ ”

But in the end, Itsuki failed.

There was no butterfly, he lost his soul mate, and that foreboding rumble from within the earth proved the Hellish Abyss was not appeased.

His murderous hands trembled, his screaming unheard in a chamber of single-minded men already preparing for the next sacrifice.

Mutsuki died for nothing. His loss, in light of everything they tried to achieve, felt meaningless.

Their failed ritual had bought even less time for Sae and Yae, and the grownups began to fret. The usual ten year period was not enough, even with their eyes on a potential Kusabi victim.

His only choice was to spirit Sae and Yae _away_ from the village, deep into the woods. He wanted to save them from the same fate he had gone through. Helping them escape was the last chance to protect them.

It had been Itsuki’s promise to his brother if the ritual… failed.

He still remembered Sae’s fearful eyes before Yae drew her back to the path. And they were gone, never to look back at the place beyond redemption.

Then the adults found him. Complicit in sabotaging the ritual, Itsuki was locked away, just another failure to his family name. Perhaps it was a blessing that his secretive moments with his own brother died with him.

He had something of a Mutsuki that belonged to him, only him.

Itsuki’s hand finally stopped writing, but his heart still weighed heavily with guilt. No matter how often he went over things in his head, he still lamented his failure.

If only his ritual had worked, no more twins would have to suffer… at least for ten more years. It was a temporary solution, a senseless sacrifice.

If the Kurosawa twins stayed and succumbed to the ritual’s pain, eventually others would have to carry out the duty, whether it was ten years or less...

Without any more twins to satisfy the insatiable cravings of the Hellish Abyss, who knows what the villagers might do? They might finally put him out of his misery as a Kusabi?

And _finally_ , he and Mutsuki could be reunited.

Itsuki gazed at the moon peeking through the garden window. After all, he had failed a ritual already, brought dishonour on the Tachibana family by assisting in escorting the only viable twins away…

Not that it mattered. Nothing would matter soon.

He walked towards the middle of the storehouse, his prison for letting the girls escape. His nimble fingers trailed down the rope, caressing the noose that would soon be around his neck.

 _‘Ah…’_ Itsuki remembered his own hands around Mutsuki’s neck. _‘How fitting.’_

His only regret was leaving Chitose behind. But with this, Itsuki could atone for everything. By helping Sae and Yae, and through his own offering, Mutsuki might forgive him, and Chitose too one day.

The rope tightened around Itsuki’s neck, he fell, and then suddenly, darkness came with a quick, hard snag.

xxx

In the cold, dark storeroom, Itsuki awoke.

He was confused at first, but the tight burning sensation around his neck brought him back to reality.

He lived. Not only was he no longer dangling from the still noose, but he had come to on the floor, the rope discarded at the far end of the room.

As he clutched his raw throat, Itsuki tried to recall what happened, but came up blank. Only a small fragment of a dream pierced his mind, a shard of memory he wished were an illusion.

Crying. Itsuki heard Sae crying outside the storehouse.

And those selfish men, trying to beckon her away. _“It is time.”_

Never before had he wanted to awaken, to scream at her to _run, run, run away_. If that dream was indeed real, Sae and Yae failed to escape together.

He buried his face against his hands, and wept. Was there anyone he could not save? Sae and Yae? His dear Mutsuki?

...Chitose?

Itsuki looked up, horrified. His little sister was still all alone somewhere in this cursed place, all alone and likely calling out for him.

He burst through the doors with… surprisingly little resistance, and entered the street to find it was still nightfall without a soul to be found.

Slowly, Itsuki felt it. That lingering _wrongness_ that seeped into everything, like a rot that corrupted all it touched. Minakami had always harboured that feeling, but this sensation was overwhelming.

And where were the people? Where they underground? Was he already…?

He ran through the streets barefooted, searching for his sister, the Kurosawa twins, anyone.

Strangely, Itsuki tried to open the doors to his home, only to find them unyielding. He hammered his fists against the wooden doors, but no one answered.

Panic washed over him, so he ran, trying every home he came across, only to find the same thing. No one answered, and no doors opened to him.

When he failed to gain entry to the gate leading to the Kurosawa residence, he fell to his knees, and wept.

No one, not even his home, wanted him. He couldn’t even get to Sae or Yae to finish what he and his brother started.

_‘I’ve failed. I’ve truly failed._

_I can’t save anyone…’_

Dejectedly, Itsuki sauntered back to the storehouse, only to find the well by what remained of the dilapidated Tsuchihara manor. A long forgotten family who once held great prestige in the village, all that existed of them was a broken down home, including the well.

Without a thought, Itsuki threw himself in, waiting for sweet, blissful oblivion.

xxx

No matter what Itsuki did to join Mutsuki in death, he always awakened in the same storehouse he first tried to take his life in.

He threw himself off the bridge. He came back.

He kneeled before a sturdy gravestone, and repeatedly hit his head against it. He came back.

He leapt into the nearest waters to drown. He came back.

He sliced himself, letting his blood run free. He came back.

He repeated his actions in the storehouse. And came back.

Sometimes, he wondered if Mutsuki was protecting or punishing him from beyond the grave. At first, Itsuki broke, thrashing his arms against anything within reach, unable to accept this cruel reality.

The Mutsuki he loved wouldn’t confine him to this torment, would he?  
  


_‘No. No, my Mutsuki..._

_Please, let me sleep... Please...’_

Whether this was divine protection or a curse born of his sins, Itsuki grew weary of it. He hated being stuck in this village, isolated and scared with nothing except his own broken mind for company.

And eventually, he stopped trying...

xxx

Itsuki has grown so accustomed to the sinister and still night without a soul to be heard.

His only company was the little garden outside his window. By a small engraved rock drifted little red butterflies. He imagined the faces of sacrificed twins, and his heart fell, knowing Mutsuki was not among them.

Then he heard soft footsteps upon the garden leaves. Running to the window, holding the bars of the windows, Itsuki gasped.

There stood Yae, her hands held together at her heart. She was dressed differently, a petite black and brown dress, but the red butterflies were telling.

They swarmed around her, like a protective whirlwind trying to save the tragic twin. Behind Yae Kurosawa, for a fleeting spell, Itsuki swore years saw _his_ Mutsuki. Those beautiful eyes that reassured him when all else failed seemed helpless. A smile that softened his troubled heart.

That gentle voice that made his own name sound like a rare treasure.

_‘Itsuki…_

_One chance…’_

For the first time in an eternity, Itsuki spoke, determination building inside his heart.

“Yae… What are you still doing here?”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Multifandom Horror Exchange for foxjar, and it’s Fatal Frame II (my favourite entry in the franchise.) The ship is the tragic Itsuki/Mutsuki with the prompt:
> 
> “After Itsuki strangles Mutsuki, maybe Mutsuki's spirit returns in some way. Mutsuki keeps Itsuki from dying; Itsuki survives when he tries to kill himself, and he realizes then that he can't die. He starts to wonder if it's because Mutsuki loves him — or has Mutsuki grown vengeful in death, and is he trying to punish Itsuki with an eternal life of suffering?”
> 
> Honestly, this was such a great prompt that I easily could have imagined being in the game, so the writing came so naturally.
> 
> Lots of horror fits in the Fatal Frame series, but I have to say Folk and Paranormal Horror really suit the stories. The rituals, the mood, the settings really convey this, and I wanted to draw on that for the fic.
> 
> Itsuki faces a great tragedy, even before the Kurosawa ritual failed. He lost his twin brother to his own hands, and couldn’t even spare Sae and Yae the same fate.
> 
> I really wanted to explore these themes of guilt, heartbreak, loss, and mourning, while Itsuki experiences a state of being trapped.
> 
> There’s a lot of darkness here where I wanted to explore what that guilt and torment would do to someone. Being torn away from someone you love that much in such a cruel fashion, unable to join them in death, reliving that pain with no one else around? It would have its toll for sure.
> 
> But I had to at least leave it on a hopeful note with Itsuki meeting Mio, thinking she’s Yae, and seeing Mutsuki’s ghost there. Definitely pushing for the Perfect Ending here. It’s his one chance.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. 🖤


End file.
